


Cast the Ashes to the Sea

by Tiara_of_Sapphires



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Introspection, Kylo gets his shit together, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 15:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15866316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiara_of_Sapphires/pseuds/Tiara_of_Sapphires
Summary: In the months after the Battle of Crait, Kylo Ren rights his wrongs





	Cast the Ashes to the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> *Shrug emoji*  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters or Star Wars or whatever.

The regret felt like poison, after Crait.

Of course, Kylo had to tamp it down for the sake of appearances but the sting of broken skin under his gloves served as a reminder that he failed and that all he had to blame was himself.

The walls of his room took the brunt of it, lightsaber slashes doing little as release and fists doing only a slightly better job.

He had been clumsy, untethered with the death of his master. Frantic, manic, struggling to find an anchor. He knew she would have gotten concessions out of him, if he had been able to cut through the haze just a little.

Destroy the First Order, along with everything else. Spare the rest of the Resistance. Anything for her.

He would have cut Hux down the moment he stepped in the room if it were to make her stay. Making Hux drop to his knees as the Force crushed around his windpipe when she left him alone was of little comfort.

Later, after the blind rage subsided, he would realize that he needed Hux, as much as that was distasteful to think about.

Kylo didn’t fully understand his mission when he was on Crait, his father’s dice disappearing from his fingers, feeling Rey pull away from his mind, feeling Luke’s presence snuff out.

It took time, the anger and regret festering inside of him before it gave way to clarity, forged from violence and the sense of dread every time he received a report of a Jedi fighting alongside the Resistance.

He knew, something that Luke couldn’t teach him. No, this came from Snoke, though it was likely his now-dead master did not mean to teach him this.

It was what failed the Rebellion of old and allowed the First Order to rise from the Empire. The only way to destroy the First Order and burn its ashes, was the kill it from the inside, from the lowliest trooper to the Supreme Leader.

Once the tiny supports that held everything together started to rebel and crumble, the rest would have to fall.

Let old things die. Let the past die.

Yes, kill it. But kill it dead this time.

All Kylo had to do was to make sure he was flying away from the final implosion.

* * *

It began with a suggestion, planted in the heads of a few choice Stormtroopers.

It had been clumsy at first, trying to manufacture the same turmoil inside the traitor that led him to leave the First Order.

Kylo didn’t know the traitor’s mind, not like he knew _hers_.

(Even now, ‘the traitor’ was being replaced by ‘Finn’ in his mind, much to his chagrin.)

But he knew rebellion: his own, and that of the traitor. He sensed it in the traitor’s mind on Jakku, a wild dissonance between his inherent personality and the brainwashing, a rioting conflict.

So, Kylo mimicked it, the wisps of freedom and mercy and independence. He added his own feelings of rebellion to the mix: bitterness, reluctance, resentment.

A tiny dose, not enough to suddenly spur an attempted assassination. He couldn’t have his own men turning against him before the work could truly begin, not knowing that he was on their side. And he certainly couldn’t have Hux cracking down with training and brainwashing if something was to immediately go amiss.

But just enough.

Pure mind tricks and control were all well and good, but not sustainable in the long-term.

He chose the ones that were the chattiest, known to be the natural leaders of their respective squads. They would be the easiest vectors.

“Sir?”

PK-3342, nicknamed ‘Trace’, stayed at attention, but there was clear hesitance in her posture. Her files were glowing with praise—as much as praise goes in the First Order—both in military style and promise to be an officer one day. Kylo waved his hand in a dismissive manner, still manipulating the Force, pulling the connection between him and her.

 _Connection, thin, superficial, not like the connection with_ her _._

“Return to your quarters. Prepare your squad for departure at 1400 hours,” he said.

She straightened a bit more.

“Y—yes, sir.”

A fraction of hesitation, something that wasn’t there before. Perfect.

* * *

This went on for months.

Kylo tried to engross himself in his task, dividing his attention between manufacturing his rebellion and leading the First Order. The second task was a farce.

The connection stayed cold, so he didn’t have other more pleasurable options to occupy his time.

He didn’t prod at it, though he would’ve liked to.

_I’ll destroy her._

The rest could fall, as long as she was left alive. But, he had to keep appearances, had to post a bounty on her head. And if those hunters who took up the bounty soon found themselves meeting sudden demises, well, Kylo shrugged his shoulders and pretend that he had nothing to do with it.

He had everything to do with it, but Hux didn’t need to know that. She didn’t know it either.

* * *

The charade could only last for so long. And Kylo knew that it was growing to become something beyond his total control.

The rumor of Jedi, systems resenting the untenable agreements made with the First Order—which Kylo had a hand in.

As the reports from the Battle at Chandrila came back, an utter rout for the First Order, Kylo knew that he needed to be prepared to leave.

He had sent thousands to slaughter in order to keep his story straight over the many months, and this was the most recent in a line of deteriorating military decisions. He knew, somehow, he would pay for that. But it was the final push.

He didn’t even intend for the battle to be what triggered the rebellion, but he was already prepared.

A day had passed after the reports came in. Lack of morale, lack of faith, rebellion. Clear as could be, palpable in the Force.

The time had come and the First Order fell like dominoes.

The troopers tore everything down, their fallen comrades a chant in their mouths. In the training facilities, aboard the Destroyers.

Kylo strode towards his private hangar, as he knew the First Order fell across the galaxy. The Force glowed and howled. Death, freedom, freedom in death.

Hux—the last enemy to be destroyed—was too prideful to allow himself to be caught and tried by any government. No, he choked quietly upon a poison pill and Kylo hoped that it hurt every moment.

His sure footsteps stalled as movement could be heard a short distance away.

The two troopers froze in the hall, their blasters trained on him.

Kylo looked at them, they looked at him.

He could kill them both, if he wanted to. Of course, he didn’t.

He fished a code card out of his pocket and waved it in the air. The shape was recognizable to the troopers and they knew what kind of power it had: access to their superiors’ chambers, access to the Supreme Leader’s chambers, to his files. Then Kylo let it drop to the ground.

“Oops.”

Once he was sure the meaning was clear to them and that they wouldn’t shoot at his back, which took mere seconds, he continued forward, a feeling in his chest ballooning.

He reached his hanger when electricity, light, _power_ brushed against his mind. A void suddenly being filled.

Rey.

She was here.

Across the galaxy. Finally.

Across the connection, he could see her.

Her hair had grown longer. She looked a bit less gaunt, but there was still the dirt and the wildness around her. She had a double-bladed lightsaber hooked to her hip.

People were shouting around her, in surprise, in confusion.

Rey looked at her, in similar confusion, in similar surprise. Suspicion, too.

“What’s happening?”

“The end.”

“Are you—okay?”

 “Oh, now you’re worried for me?” he asked, allowing some measure of smug leaking into his voice. Concern, now. For his safety, despite everything.

The tips of her ears turned red.

“Don’t be a kriffing—”

“So, where’s the Resistance hanging out these days?”

Her mouth closed with a click.

“I’m not telling _you_ that.”

He tried not to feel too hurt by that and failed. Instead, he covered it with a jaunty offhandedness that seemed forced, even to his ears.

“Well, I’m heading to Naboo.”

“ _Naboo_?”

Kylo shrugged.

“Seems like a good enough place. I’ve seen it in my dreams recently.”

More than recently. And he omitted the fact that he dreamt of Naboo and her at the same time.

In the cockpit now, powering up the ship, getting ready to abandon this ship full of rebels.

“Just an offer,” he said.

The victory of it all gave him the confidence to say that, though he braced for rejection.

She watched him, hesitant.

“I’ll think about it.”

The connection dissolved and the void returned, though it was warmer than it was in the months since Crait.

He smiled to himself as the stars blended around the cockpit and the hyperdrive whirred. It definitely wasn’t a no. If she did take him off on his offer, she would come to him as a friend.

He would meet her equally.

**Author's Note:**

> Yaaay! Hopeful ending! (Though lbr, Kylo and Rey totally bang in his safehouse on Naboo)  
> All feedback is appreciated!  
> Cheers!  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires


End file.
